Saturday, January 30, 2010

I watched President Obama's State of the Union speech the other night, and I found the constant stream of standing ovations to be a major irritant.

Excessive standing ovations that characterize events like this do not encourage me to tune in. I'm pretty sure the same is true of many people.

One of the most important parts of Mr. Obama's speech was about three quarters of the way through, when he spoke of the loss of faith in institutions, CEO's rewarding themselves for failure, TV pundits reducing serious arguments to silly sound bites and politicians cutting each other down rather than lifting the country up. The place was quiet. People seemed to be assimilating the message rather than making sure to clap and cheer louder.

I'm glad the cheer-leading had subsided by that point because, otherwise, by then I would have changed the channel.

Please stop the overdone cheer-leading. It wastes time, detracts from the message and squanders the impact of a real standing ovation.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

> Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have > lost faith that our biggest institutions – our > corporations, our media, and yes, our government > – still reflect these same values. Each of these > institutions are full of honorable men and women > doing important work that helps our country > prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for > failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for > his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each > time lobbyists game the system or politicians > tear each other down instead of lifting this country > up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce > serious debates into silly arguments, and big > issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.> > No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.> > No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

I lost any such illusions ages ago.

The bit about TV pundits came on the heels of having deliberately tried to watch the run up to the address on Fox News. Bill O'Reiley was hosting. His guest was some cretin whose name escapes me who responded to a prompt about climate change by saying words to the effect that he wanted to drive his huge SUV down is long driveway from his huge house, and that if you couldn't do that without worrying about carbon dioxide then what's the use of having a planet anyway.

What an asshole.

Right about then my son looked over at me and asked if they weren't showing the address on PBS. Having had my fill of TV pundits and silly arguments, we switched to PBS.

in reference to:

"Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there. No wonder there’s so much disappointment."- 2010 Barack Obama State Of The Union Address (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

> "Governor Palin has captivated everyone on > both sides of the political spectrum and we > are excited to add her dynamic voice to the > Fox News line-up," Bill Shine, executive vice> president of programming, said in a statement.>> Mrs Palin said in a statement posted on the> network's website: "It's wonderful to be part of > a place that so values fair and balanced news."

WHAT!!??

"Captivated everyone" on "both sides" of the political spectrum?

This is, as they say, not even wrong. It's just noise. "Both sides" of the political spectrum? Two sides? That's it? Good and evil? Black and white?